RE: [PATCH] drm/i915: check to see if SIMD registers are available before using SIMD

From: David Laight
Date: Mon May 04 2020 - 12:17:05 EST


From: Christoph Hellwig
> Sent: 04 May 2020 17:03
>
> On Sun, May 03, 2020 at 09:20:19PM +0100, Chris Wilson wrote:
> > > Err, why does i915 implements its own uncached memcpy instead of relying
> > > on core functionality to start with?
> >
> > What is this core functionality that provides movntqda?
>
> A sensible name might be memcpy_uncached or mempcy_nontemporal.
> But the important point is that this should be arch code with a common
> fallback rather than hacking it up in drivers.

More the point, you are trying to do a copy where:
1) The kernel isn't expected to read the data - so can bypass the cache.
and maybe:
2) The data needs flushing from the cache to actual memory.
and maybe:
3) The cache lines need invalidating.

The fallbacks depend on the required behaviour.

David

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